At the Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature in Dubai, Margaret Atwood discussed censorship via video link, and the thriller writer Karin Slaughter said that book prizes are “like welfare for people who write very slowly.”

Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois, has announced a six-figure book deal with the independent publisher Phoenix Books.

“It is not for enjoyment,” Colm Toíbín says of writing. “It has nothing to do with enjoyment. I like selling foreign rights, but that feeling would last no longer than twenty minutes.”

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